The Metropolitan Council and business groups will continue to fight for preliminary engineering money for the Southwest light rail transit line, even though the Minnesota Legislature denied a $25 million bonding request.

Southwest LRT backers will seek DEED money

The Metropolitan Council and business groups will continue to fight for preliminary engineering money for the Southwest light rail transit (LRT) line, even though the Minnesota Legislature denied a $25 million bonding request.

The regional planning agency intends to join the fray of government entities clamoring for a share of the $47.5 million that legislators gave the state Department of Employment and Economic Development to award to capital projects that would lead to jobs and business development.

The Met Council is not able to wait for the Legislature to reconvene because, says Chairwoman Susan Haigh, the failure to land state funds this year will jeopardize a major contribution from the Federal Transit Administration.

“The urgent need for this line requires that we begin exploring other temporary funding alternatives to keep the project on track until the 2013 Legislature has the opportunity to fund the state’s share of the project,” Haigh said in a statement. “In the coming weeks, I’ll be talking with our local funding partners and the Dayton administration about how to keep Southwest light rail progressing and how to ensure the project remains competitive for federal dollars.”

Bruce Nustad, president of the TwinWest Chamber of Commerce, said the Southwest LRT project needs a minimum of $14 million in state money this year for preliminary engineering to keep its place near the top among transit projects nationwide that the FTA has pledged to help fund.

“If we get $14 million, it will continue to demonstrate local commitment to the project, and it will continue to keep preliminary engineering moving forward,” Nustad said.

TwinWest and the Greater Minneapolis and St. Paul Area chambers of commerce, which lobbied hard for bonding money, will also continue to pursue funding from other sources, Nustad said.

“I think we know where the buckets are, but we don’t know what the availability or the appetite is” for funding the Southwest LRT, he said. “Conceivably a failure to fully fund preliminary engineering could stall the project. Obviously, a stalling … would not send a good message” to the FTA, he added. “Right now the project enjoys a very favorable placement in the federal queue, and we don’t want to give that up.”

The project would still need $9 million to start the final design, said Met Council spokeswoman Laura Baenen.

The council already has $47 million dedicated to this two-year engineering phase from the Counties Transit Improvement Board and the Hennepin County Regional Railroad Authority, she added. The state’s proposed $125 million total contribution would be matched 9-to-1 with federal and county funds to pay up to half the cost of the line.

It’s unclear whether the LRT project would qualify for the DEED bonding money because the line is in the preliminary engineering phase. DEED officials have said they want that money to go to projects that would begin construction during this construction season, said DEED spokesman Monte Hanson.

“At this point, we haven’t even set up the criteria for how that funding will go out,” Hanson said. “It’s just a little bit early for us.”

The Southwest LRT has stiff competition for the DEED money. The final $496 million bonding bill was two-thirds of the amount that Gov. Mark Dayton requested for bonding projects.

The rejected projects are lining up. As previously reported by Finance & Commerce, Mankato, Rochester and St. Cloud city officials emailed requests for a total of $59.6 million for civic centers to DEED Commissioner Mark Phillips shortly after the Republican-controlled Legislature passed the bonding bill. St. Paul wants $27 million for a new Saints baseball stadium in Lowertown.

The situation is frustrating to light rail proponents.

“The bottom line right now is there’s $47 million on the table to spend for preliminary engineering, but we can’t access all of it without the state committing,” said Hennepin County Commissioner Gail Dorfman, who represents St. Louis Park and the portion of Minneapolis through which the line would run. “Even though we have enough money to do a year (to) a year-and-a-half of design and engineering work, we’re still required to have a proportionate amount from the state.”

Hennepin County officials had been planning the project for about a dozen years before the FTA committed to funding preliminary engineering in September 2011, giving the green light to the Met Council to take over.

The county intends to lobby the Legislature for more money, Dorfman said. She said it’s not unusual for local government agencies to approach the Legislature multiple times for a state contribution to such a project.

Baenen would not specify how much money the Met Council would seek from DEED.

Meanwhile, the council is negotiating with one of two companies, URS Corp. and AECOM, on the preliminary engineering contract, said Baenen, who said she was prohibited from identifying which one until the council approves the contract.

“Unfortunately, the procurement process remains active, and we are not at liberty to discuss anything until an award is made,” AECOM spokesman Paul Dickard wrote in an email. “Even then, if we are fortunate to receive the contract, we would need to receive approval from the client to offer any comment, which is standard practice for all of our client-based activities.”

A URS spokesman also declined to comment.

The 15.5-mile Southwest LRT line would run through Eden Prairie, Minnetonka, Hopkins, St. Louis Park and Minneapolis. From Minneapolis, riders could continue on the Central Corridor LRT line to St. Paul or change trains at Target Field Station for the Hiawatha LRT or the Northstar commuter rail line.

If all goes according to schedule, construction on the $1.25 billion Southwest line would begin in 2014, and it would open in 2018.

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Those interests vying for that money should remember the lessons from Elk Run:

He who lies the best gets jettisoned to the front. If the idea sounds good enough it need to produce anything, need not fear non-performance penalties, and may influence D.E.E.D. to lie to the Legislature on your behalf, thus lending you credibility you do not have. Merit and sound economic investment do not matter; it’s the best lie that wins the day